Technical Field
The present technique relates to the field of electronic devices. More particularly, it relates to a technique for receiving a data packet from an external device.
Technical Background
There is an increasing demand for electronic devices which are both very small and energy efficient. For example, wireless sensor nodes which can communicate at relatively short range with an external device are in demand for biomedical applications such as intracranial, intraocular, or cardiac sensors which can be embedded in the body for transmitting sensing data to external device. For such a device, there are severe constraints on both the amount of energy available for the device and the peak current which can be supplied to the radio transmitter/receiver. For example, it may not be practical to replace a battery in a device that is implanted in the body, and the device may need to function for a long period of time, so energy efficiency may be important. Many current protocols for communicating with such a device require an accurate jitter-free timing reference, which is expensive in terms of energy. The present technique seeks to address this problem.